Kerala approaches SC against inaction of Governor to approve bills

New Delhi: The State of Kerala filed a plea before the Supreme Court on Thursday, citing the Governor's "inaction" in approving the bills that the state legislature had passed.

According to the plea, as many as eight bills were presented to the Governor for his assent and of these, “three have been pending with the Governor for more than two years, and three more in excess of a full year."

"The conduct of the Governor, as would presently be demonstrated, threatens to defeat and subvert the very fundamentals and basic foundations of our Constitution, including the rule of law and democratic good governance," read the plea, adding that the Governor's alleged inaction defeats the rights of the people of the State to the welfare measures sought to be implemented through the bills.

By keeping bills presented to him pending for such long periods, the Governor is directly violating the provision of the Constitution, namely, that the bill should be dealt with "as soon as possible".

It said that the words "as soon as possible" occurring in Article 200 of the Constitution necessarily mean that not only should pending bills be disposed of within a reasonable time, but that these Bills have to be dealt with urgently and expeditiously without any avoidable delay.

"Grave injustice is being done to the people of the State, as also to its representative democratic institutions (i.e. the State Legislature and the Executive) by the Governor, by keeping Bills pending for long periods of time," stated the plea filed through advocate C.K. Sasi.

It added that the conduct of the Governor is manifestly arbitrary and violates Article 14 of the Constitution and defeats the rights of the people of the State of Kerala under Article 21 of the Constitution, by denying them the benefits of welfare legislation enacted by the State Assembly.

Article 200 of the Constitution casts a solemn duty on the Governor of a State by requiring that on the presentation to him of any bill passed by the State Legislature, he "shall declare either that he assents to the Bill or that he withholds assent therefrom or that he reserves the bill for the consideration of the President."

Recently, the Tamil Nadu government had also petitioned the Supreme Court against the delay by Governor R.N. Ravi in assenting bills passed by the state legislature, saying that he has positioned himself as a “political rival” to the legitimately elected government.

Earlier, the Telangana government had approached the top court seeking direction from Governor Tamilisai Soundararajan to give her approval to the 10 bills which were stated to be pending with the Raj Bhavan after being passed by the state legislature.

With inputs from IANS